Erik Madigan Heck reimagines the Alhambra collection by Van Cleef & Arpels
The photographer returns to the jewellery house with another set of arresting visuals.
A dreamlike, hauntingly beautiful botanical garden comes alive as icons of Van Cleef & Arpels peep through the lush foliage and awaken the sacred feminine energy within the wearer. Erik Madigan Heck sets the scene in a way that only he can. Creating a dialogue between the Perlée and Alhambra jewels, the award-winning photographer highlights the joyful lines that define the unique creations and their bold combinations of materials, colours and stylised forms.
Heck, who has previously signed several photographic series around Van Cleef & Arpels creations including a carte blanche in the book Florae, returns to the jewellery house with a series of captivating images. He taps into his passion for films and paintings—he relaunched Nomenus Quarterly, a journal focusing on the intersection between photography and painting, just a couple of years back—and showcases another side of the two collections.
Among those that are presented in a new light are the Perlée sweet clovers pieces. Marrying two emblems of the Maison: the golden beads and clovers, the crowning jewels of the rapidly expanding line rework the first Perlée clovers’ shimmering ribbon with ten clover motifs on the bracelet and five on the ring—each featuring a central bead surrounded by four round diamonds—while preserving the glistening globes on its rim.
The secret pendant watches under the Alhambra banner also make an unmistakable appearance in the photographs. Launched earlier this year, the timepieces reveal themselves with a simple slide of the stone-set motif. Alongside these extraordinary pieces, two Sweet Alhambra watches adorned with ornamental stones and delicate beads in yellow gold gracefully hug the wrists of the models, making their presence felt in Heck’s mysterious, verdant scenography.
